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Resource Management Act 1991

Transitional provisions - Existing uses

419: Certain discharges affected by water classifications

You could also call this:

“Rules about putting waste in water that were okay before 1991 can still apply for a little while”

If you were allowed to discharge waste into water before the Resource Management Act 1991 started, you can keep doing it for a while. This is because some rules about water quality, referred to in section 368(2)(b), are part of regional plans under section 368(1) or regional coastal plans under section 370(1). You can keep discharging waste until you apply for a resource consent and any appeals about that application are decided.

You will have to apply for a resource consent to keep discharging waste into the water. If you do not apply for a resource consent within two years of the Resource Management Act 1991 starting, you will no longer be allowed to discharge waste into the water.

This rule applies even if other parts of the Resource Management Act 1991 say something different.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM240630.

Topics:
Environment and resources > Conservation Environment and resources > Town planning
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418: Certain existing permitted uses may continue, or

"You can keep doing things you were already doing without a new licence if you were allowed to before."

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420: Designations and requirements continued, or

"Old rules from 1977 still apply to some projects and areas"

Part 15 Transitional provisions
Existing uses

419Certain discharges affected by water classifications

  1. Where—

  2. provisions of a final water classification of the kind referred to in section 368(2)(b) are deemed to constitute the provisions of a regional plan under section 368(1) or a regional coastal plan under section 370(1); and
    1. immediately before the date of commencement of this Act, in respect of any receiving water to which those provisions apply, any discharge of waste within the meaning of the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 was authorised to be continued under section 26K(2) of that Act—
        1. any person so authorised shall, subject to subsection (2), continue to be so authorised for the same period, to the same extent, and subject to the same conditions, pending that person's application for a resource consent to discharge such waste into the receiving water and the determination of any appeals in respect of that application.

      1. Any person authorised under subsection (1) to continue any discharge of waste shall cease to be so authorised upon the second anniversary of the date of commencement of this Act unless by that anniversary that person has made an application under this Act to the relevant regional council for a resource consent to discharge such waste.

      2. This section shall apply notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Act.